“... moral universe. They do what they have to do, moment by moment, to survive, even if that means abandoning or betraying or stealing from one another. They make endless misjudgments, their fear of authority figures – immigration inspectors, a doctor’s receptionist, a lollipop lady – leads them to trust the wrong people: Avtar hands over his ...”

“... of hesitation or doubt. His examples include Achilles, Odysseus, Beowulf, Hildebrand, Samson and David. A hero of this type ‘so perfectly embodies the values of his culture that he experiences no doubts’: Achilles, for instance, is said to be motivated entirely by ‘archaic blood vengeance’. Yet the Iliad could be said to fit Ziolkowski’s model ...”

“... by contrast, sees Hopper as a philosophical artist ‘who was concerned with abstract values as a means to a figural end’. This might have surprised Hopper, who, though usually aloof, in the early 1950s joined the editorial board of the artists’ journal Reality, the purpose of which was, in Nivison’s words, ‘to preserve the existence of realism in art ...”

“... how many that would be – are almost bound to be intrigued by the book. When ‘putting down’ means trouncing or violently refuting, the book is safe, principally because one experiences no wish to do either of these things. The arguments are presented in mannerly fashion; though the writer is currently agnostic, he makes no attempt to stampede or ...”

“... and powerful friends. She had been a celebrity on What’s My Line? and lives on as the subject of David Bowie’s song ‘God Knows I’m Good’. God knows what the authorities would do to a hardened, inarticulate sneak thief from the lower classes. And even if the magistrates were in a forgiving mood, what about the shame? My grandmother had neither a lucid ...”

“... you read “In Defence of Convention T”?’ The very plainness of his name (often transmuted to David Donaldson) lent an aura of mystique to the plosive economy of the Davidson corpus. And the man himself, with his startling blue eyes and precisely articulated mode of speech, his unhurried confidence, his immersion in his own vision, his neatness, certainly ...”

“... the colonial wars of a later epoch’: Cromwell had recovered Ireland by similar means, but St Domingue was too far away. French ferocity compelled blacks and mulattos to join hands, and ended in the first and best-deserved defeat of the Corsican bandit, as he was called, sometimes deservedly, by Englishmen. It was also the first successful ...”

“... whose motto is ‘All the news that’s fit to print’, and when the Times says ‘all’, it means all. The book is, therefore, dense with names, places and dates. Mr Hersh tells us that he carried out more than a thousand interviews and I believe it. In some cases he interviewed the same person four or five times to make sure that he got it right. He ...”

“... something much deeper and blacker, that we all respected’. In an obituary of the sculptor David Smith he describes the good times they had and adds: ‘we both knew damned well the black abyss in each of us that the sun and the daughters’ skin and the bounty and the drink could alleviate but not begin to fill, a certain kind, I suppose of ...”

“... himself in the wicked world; the Disney Pinocchio always stands out as special and strange, as a means of exposing the ugliness of adult ways. It is his innocent artifice that makes him vulnerable to the horrible overtures of Stromboli, the Fox and the Cat. Watching him cheerfully stumble through the song ‘I’ve Got No Strings’, while surrounded by ...”

“... it is women’s woefully low representation in the top positions in our society that means they have become the load-bearers of austerity.’ Sonia Adesara, a doctor and ambassador for the organisation 50:50 Parliament, has argued that better representation for women is key to addressing the impact of austerity on women’s health: ‘What 50:50 ...”

“... Oval Office: ‘Ed, how much money does the Federal Government put into MIT every year?’ Edward David didn’t have the exact sum to hand – it was in fact $105 million in 1972 – but Nixon was adamant: ‘I want it all cut off.’ In a dither, David scurried back to his office and phoned Nixon’s assistant John ...”

“... There wasn’t anything inevitable about David Cameron’s rise. If Kenneth Clarke had stirred himself into running something like a campaign when competing for the leadership with Iain Duncan Smith and been ready to appear more tractable on Europe; if David Davis had moved decisively in the immediate aftermath of Michael Howard’s resignation or been a more fluent speaker; if Howard had offered Cameron the shadow chancellorship or George Osborne had not accepted it – if these or any number of other contingencies had been otherwise, Cameron might not have become leader ...”

“... Franzen, an apostate from their ranks, helped make the ex-theorist schlub a stock character. David Foster Wallace, a true believer of sorts, envied Dostoevsky’s pre-postmodern sincerity. Then everything seemed to get turned round and I was suddenly too old to be able to speak with confidence about the totality of Western culture, or to police an ...”

“... of great fiction do not change, much,’ Zadie Smith wrote eight years ago in an essay about David Foster Wallace. ‘But the means do.’ She was between novels: three years had passed since her most traditional, On Beauty, was published; NW, her most experimental, wouldn’t appear for another four. But, as sometimes ...”